Heaven and Earth movie review (1993)

Into her life one day comes a tall, craggy American named Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), who does not want her as a prostitute, but as a bride. He is gentle, understanding, persistent, although perhaps if she had been less desperate she would have been able to distinguish a disturbing note when he vowed, "I want an Oriental wife." His image of her is hopelessly entangled with his own guilt and fear, his inner demons, his need for a woman who will simultaneously forgive him, and surrender to him.

Le Ly returns to America as Mrs. Steve Butler, to a land where the supermarket shelves seem to reach endlessly in every direction and the in-laws regard her as something between a scandal and a pet.

(One of her American relatives is played, in a bit of wicked casting, by Debbie Reynolds.) Le Ly has trouble adjusting, but not as much trouble as her husband, who finds that his training and 20 years as a "military adviser" have left him hopelessly unsuited to civilian life. In these scenes, Jones draws on an earlier character, the Vietnam veteran he played in Lynne Littman's underrated "Rolling Thunder" (1977). He shows his gift for creating characters who are never more frightening than when they are being nice.

In a time when few American directors are drawn toward political controversy, Stone seeks it out. He loves big subjects and approaches them fearlessly. The Vietnam War is the most important event in recent American history, but only Stone has made it his business as a filmmaker.

Movies are not the best way to make a reasoned argument. For that you need the written word, which can be pinned down, footnoted, double-checked and debated. Movies traffic in emotions. They are about the ways things look and feel. In "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July" and now "Heaven and Earth," Stone has tried to let us look through eyes that saw three elements of the war.

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